Gun Violence: A Public Health Issue

1.9.13

David Hemenway

Photograph courtesy of the Harvard School of Public Health

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In the wake of the murder of more
than two dozen children and adults in Newtown, Connecticut, in December, the
Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Reuters sponsored a forum at the
school on “Gun Violence: A Public Health Crisis” on January 8. Reuters correspondent Scott
Malone[3] moderated the conversation, in which professor of health policy and
management David
Hemenway (HSPH), professor of child psychiatry Felton Earls (Harvard Medical
School), Loeb University Professor Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law expert,
and senior lecturer in public policy David King (Harvard Kennedy School)
discussed both the status quo as a public-health issue, and interventions that
could protect Americans, young and old, from more deaths by firearms.

“Violent behavior
is learned behavior,” said Earls. “It is reflected in the brain but is not
carried by genes. We have done a good job of changing social norms with respect
to child abuse. Now we need to broaden this to include exposure to violence.”

Tribe urged action
because “the current window of opportunity may not last.” He noted that
“violent videos are not uniquely available in the United States. What
distinguishes us is our astonishingly relaxed and loophole-laced laws on guns.”
The Second Amendment is actually the friend of those who seek stronger gun
laws, Tribe said, because it disqualifies the “slippery slope” argument that any regulation of guns will eventually
end private gun ownership. “The government is not constitutionally capable of
disarming everybody,” he asserted.

“I believe we are
not going to make a lot of progress [on guns] in Congress anytime soon,” said
King, who noted that "96 percent of the funding that went towards gun-control measures went to Republicans in the last election cycle." In the polity, he
said, citizens hold to their preferences with “differing intensities,” and he
challenged the audience to consider what they want from democracy: “Is a democracy supposed to reflect the majority opinion, or should a democracy also weigh the intensity of people’s preferences?”